Lessons

Lesson Info

Targeting Niche Markets: Families

Sign it jin high end clothing boutiques and this doesn't write supersede everything we've been talking about for two days this kind of builds on some of the things we've been talking about for two days okay works hand in glove here advertising local community magazines almost every local community has that local magazine go after it we did we did one magazine I think we got the back cover and I want to say it was like two hundred fifty dollars to get the back cover is it going out to fifty thousand people know but I don't care right? I'm just trying to reach out some families do I do it year round? Absolutely not I'm doing it in the month of september and october, so I have the greatest reach what's my campaign I want to run then family month okay? So it's family portrait month those of the people I'm trying to go after so start running that campaign in september and october earlier if you want to but get people motivated ah and use this is a great tool for you and it's it's pretty ine...

xpensive tv commercials I wouldn't run a tv commercial for weddings because not everybody's watching tv is getting married I wouldn't run a tv commercial for seniors because not everybody who's watching tv has a senior but tv commercials for family portrait or ah right running it and showing multiple style of images has potential and so in our local market we did this so back in two thousand eight we were running a tv commercial it was the coolest thing in the world to see a tv commercial being producing was all our images we had a professional guy come in for a voice over and it ran on some of this this not only local stations but when you go there each local station if you don't know how tv buying works you've got access to home improvement networks espn whoever you think your demographic is they always run a spot with the local businesses right that's why you always see those bad used car in car dealership commercials okay I don't know why that we were actually talking about this over lunch those commercials are so bad it drives me bonkers ok but here we are we have access to that same those same time slot so feel free to go after them and try tv commercial now this is going to be firm or establish studio if you're just starting out you don't have a budget to even produce the commercial let alone run it but just keep in mind a lot of the tv stations as part of your ad campaign we'll give you some production time to produce the video for you but as you're growing your business this is definitely worth something to explore what about partner with a friend that's in sales something like thirty one I don't know if you've heard of thirty one right it's a bad company they make them eat those quilted bags uh along with a host of other products but guess what they're doing everyday they're selling they're selling the people they're selling the moms they have access to a list that you will never get your hands on partner with him everybody who buys and everybody who spends more than two hundred dollars with you gets a free family session everyone who spends over five or everyone who spends over two hundred dollars gets fifty percent off a session for you how about that everybody who spends over five hundred dollars with you gets a free um photo session period no prints just a free session so now that's incentive for her because she can show to our clients hey guys if I can get you spent a little bit more money I've got a free family session for you here so now she's gonna she's motivated to sell your product if you well or service why? Because she's that your product or service is now a value add to the client it's just like we say if you refer somebody I'll give you free sixteen by twenty four cameras who's that benefiting lots benefiting bay photo right that campus that's where that sales going it's the same thing for them hey spent over five hundred dollars with me on new thirty one product I'll give you a free family session. Well that's gonna benefit us guys with me on this? How about taking it a step further? One of my friends she works for ah, northwestern mutual okay, so she works hard she's an insurance wrap this what? She works for this company her top ten clients. What I gave to her was I created a gift certificate for her to give her top ten clients. I don't want to give it to all our client, her top ten clients we know our pre qualified they have money here's your gift to them a free family session and in a free eleven by fourteen portrait how was I going to make that work? So I had to invest my time for free. I had to give up the product for free, but my goal or my hope was that once they redeem that there's no way in the world that they would spend or just buy one eleven by fourteen print. My bet was what I was banking on is that no one was going to come in and just get a single print, so I was willing to take that risk. So off the ten we handed out, I believe this is a couple of years ago on ly three or four were redeemed I'm okay with that too I don't need everybody to redeem it the goal is the people who do redeem it are looking for family porch it's right? So that's fine three or four redeemed him one ended up buying like two eight by tens or something and taking their eleven by fourteen and running another one bought nothing which made no sense whatsoever but to spent over four thousand dollars each that was a good campaign now you figure out the averages that brings it down right to like somewhere like a thousand dollar average per client I shot right cause I photographed for people but that's gonna happen ok was it worth it? I think it was worth it because it costs me nothing to get access to these people. It was just a little bit of my time I have no idea why the one person came in had a photo session, got to rest stop came came to us invested all that time and then bought zero so you know you just never know these things happen sometimes but ultimately that's another good campaign you can run and there's no reason why you can't start doing this stuff tomorrow leverage your network's? How about hosting an open house at your studio offer specials? This is something that you can start doing to your existing client base let's not forget our existing client base as a source right of new off sales they already already love you why are we giving up on him? Just because you had a baby session four years ago doesn't mean I can't photograph you again, right? So let's keep going after him let's go let's hope holding open house let's network with other people in our community and just have an open house where we're showcasing different products and services in jewelry or whatever the case may be for us. We've got this great opportunity. Come june, we're opening up our new studio space, we're going to have an open house for all our old clients and photographers alike. Well, when they come in, why wouldn't I want to encourage them to photograph in our studio again? So I'm gonna give them incentives to book us again get fifty percent off any session fee if you book today direct mail family month we talked about this yesterday. Those fly I should be going out knocked. Owen august september october sent two or three flyers out going after family portrait how about this free family session? Every high school senior, why would you not want to give that you're high school seniors of free family session cost you zero? Do you think everyone's going to redeem it? No, you know why? Because they already know how your studio works, so they know that if they come in and have a free family session they're not getting free pictures, no pictures I'm just giving you the session fee for freight so if they take advantage of it they know how your system works they expect to spend money we do this every year and I would say maybe I don't know somewhere in the range of ten a year come from that so we don't really actively advertise families that's not my core business the families we do photograph or from our weddings and our senior clients and when they come in they spend big and that's because they know how our studio work's average family in our studio is in that three to four thousand dollar range the pricing and packaging is all the same we're just not advertising right and getting those clients who are looking for the picture people nineteen, ninety nine and they get one hundred prints that's not who is coming to us because I know my client I'm in tune with my client all right? We're about to go on to the next thing, but I'm going to pause because I just dumped ah bunch of marketing ideas on everybody questions from the internet questions from you guys seventh inning stretch definitely seventh inning stretch good question coming in from from the chat room from jennifer augusta that question being is it possible to over saturate your area with the free family sessions or any other types of free sessions like that absolutely you can absolutely saturate your market with this stuff you khun diminish your brand you don't want to be doing that you don't want to throw too much out there is free free free you know some of the other things we need to get to in here are like charities working with charities working with booster clubs for the high schools you've got to be very careful if you if you're out there everywhere you definitely run the risk of saturating it to the point where no one's going to be willing to pay full price to come to your studio. Okay, so just be conscious of that what I'm giving you here are tools to go out and get busy once you're busy, this becomes the least of yours. But for those of you who are sitting there and going, all things are slow competition is too much on no one's booking us then you have no excuse anymore let's get you busy you're least of your worries right now is being oversaturated I can't imagine there's many of you out there going I'm just everywhere all right? Everybody knows who I am that's usually not the problem going on right now so but yes to that question ah follow question and this is a little bit different to say sell ideally in a perfect world you want to go your business to become a wedding photographer but I guess in the beginning should you hey, sometimes you gotta do families or you do glamour shots to get the business going to get experience so sometimes even the in gold it's a wedding photographer, you got to do these things to stay afloat, get experience, get a track, right? That's. Exactly. Right, you've got to get busy. You've got to start working. I mean, that's the ultimate goal, where's, the money come part of what we were talking about yesterday or even earlier today, I'm like what's in the way of you and pursuing this full time what's in the way of you and success. And so you've got to start doing this now, do whatever you have to. When I started out, I was photographing anything. Ah, that got in front of the camera. I didn't love it. I found my passion, but let's say you're an established studio. Okay, if you're an established studio like we are glamorous, brand new force, and so if we look at that glamour slide, right, these are things that I'm doing to go after the glamour market. Uh, I'm not a new photographer. I'm new in this market, so I've got to go back to the basics to get established in that market area, right? We don't never think you've got it all figured out so those studios that are out there that are five, ten years old if you think you got it all figured out you're probably struggling you've got to keep reinventing uh yourself every couple of years so that you can continue to grow your business authentic images and a couple others and the chat room were wondering if this, uh, glamour photography if it would work for the bridal party and more specifically maybe like at the bridal shower? Yeah, no that's that girl's night out there, they get it, they're getting what I'm saying that's exactly what I'm thinking when I'm talking about this climber party could be the right it's the bridal party they're going out all the girls, right? And so rather than going out and getting trashed at a bar and run around that stupid stuff on their head ah here's an opportunity you know what I'm talking about? Uh this is an opportunity for them to do something that's going to give everyone kind of a cool gift, so maybe that's the gift from the bride to her bridal party for the shower or something like that so this could be really, really cool that person's getting it so I love it I think the overarching point that you got across not just on day one but day two is that photographers take photos writers write so can you talk a little more about that work ethic and if you do have downtown right now you don't have a really big business there's absolutely no excuse to go get your hands dirty yeah to not get your hands dirty, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to get into it, guys, if you're sitting there let's, think about the life of a photographer. You're going from april for us in our studio every part of the country's, probably different, but for us from april too first week of december is pure madness in our studio that's when all the sessions start kicking in so we're just starting to get busy, right? May or june? I have two two weekends where we have four weddings in each of those weekends, right? So it becomes madness. Well, now we get into december, january, february, march guys, we're not sitting home right in our pajamas kick back and just watching tv all day. What we're doing is that's when we're laying the groundwork, all these programs I'm talking about, so that come course season, we are slammed, I want to be slammed every year, okay with the business so that I've got money coming in that's how I make my living, I'm shooting, so if I'm not photographing how my generating income so this is where this is where from december to march or april this is what you're investing in it's not slow season right it's slow in the sense we're not out running around photographing but business wise this is where you're investing all your time awesome question from km photo says I've heard other photographers say never offer a discount and one in particular was an industry leader so how do you find the balance? Um I look to corporate america from I lied ok? So at the end of the day we can look to brands like louis vuitton and you'd absolutely be correct louis vuitton never runs a sale, okay? And then you could look to other brands that are mid level brands and they do run sails and then you could look to certain low and brands and they're always running sales nothing is ever at full price, right? Each one has pros and cons what I'm suggesting to you is balance what I'm suggesting to you is understanding where you're making your money and when you're starting out and you're not busy, you do not have the luxury of saying you're never going to run a sale you're not busy, you're not working, you need to get busy and get shooting, you do whatever you have to do as you become a more established studio if you don't want to want to run a sale I don't want to sale that's on you but the minute you're not busy you're gonna have to answer the question to you your family and look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why am I not busy and what can I do to be busy and if that means offering ten percent off for fifteen percent off to get busy you do what you have to do to bring business in the door that is the life of an entrepreneur I'm a curious for any of you guys in studio audience right now. How about you guys? How have you kept yourself busy is during ah slow seasons if at all or just something new that you guys are gonna try now after this course so our slow season last fall we did the vendor family portrait session and then right after that we had a huge half off campus sale and it was so successful we did it another day that's also is great. So what the hell half off campus sale was that for your vendors or was that for all your cards for all our client? So then I was right before christmas everybody had him back in time for christmas yeah that's a great campaign, right? So we get into december first week of december, right? We run a campaign for our clients and we say something to the effect of massive sale. Get your images by christmas so now that's that late in pain. What do I get for christmas? What I get for grandma? What do I get? Uh, no for my wife, man, I get that portrait that I know I took a picture off boom, fifty percent off, or whatever special you were running, and it starts generating business. That is awesome. Anybody else were you doing in your downtime, watching creative life? Nice, dana, we got to get you to stop watching, creative, live and start doing creative. Live will always be here. We've got to get you doing.